


twice over

by valinorbound



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s01e09 The Empty Child, Episode: s01e10 The Doctor Dances, Light Angst, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, it's Jack and Ianto in 1941. that's it. with some lazy plot on the side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24776653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valinorbound/pseuds/valinorbound
Summary: A past mistake comes back to haunt him. In a manner of speaking.But this time, he doesn’t have to face it alone.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	twice over

**Author's Note:**

> Happy (late) birthday to The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances! I don't usually publish my fic, but I love those episodes too much not to do this.

“Rift spike near Century Wharf.”

Tosh’s voice echoes through the hub when she stands up, dropping her half-finished mug of coffee on the desk. “It’s a big one.”

“How big?” Owen asks, peering around the corner from the autopsy room. He sheds his lab coat whilst Gwen sprints into Jack’s office. 

“Largest since… well, a while.” She pulls her coat over her shoulders. “This’ll be interesting.” 

The rift, Tosh thinks, should only act up when the sun has fully risen. It’s a bright and cloudless morning but that doesn’t make up for the light frost on the grass, the remnants of a night chill in the air. Owen mutters something similar to her own thoughts as he appears behind her, shrugging on his coat.

“Didn’t something get stirred up ‘round there a while back?” he asks.

“Possibly...” It rings a bell, and she takes a moment to think it through. A lot has changed since then, and it may have even been before Gwen; an image of Suzie, somewhat unwelcome, jogs her memory. “Tiny pink bird-looking things? Huge fangs?”

“Yes!” he replied, grimacing as he no doubt remembers their bite. “Nasty buggers. What did Jack say they were called? Started with ‘E’- Emb.. Enb-”

Tosh zones out from Owen’s voice when the details of the case come flooding back. “I’ll catch you up,” she says. “Something I need to try first…”

Half a mile away, under a purple dawn sky, the golden light bursts open. It spreads in blinding tendrils, engulfing the alleyway in which it first appeared. 

Something is deposited.

It stands to its feet, remarkably steady, moving almost mechanically away from the rift’s light; it walks with purpose in a new world. 

You wouldn’t think it to be human at first glance. In the shadows of the morning, the first thing you’d notice is the eyes - wide, round, metallic, _unnatural._ Are they eyes at all? 

Before you’d see the rest of it, you’d hear what it has to say.

The creature tilts its head in a way that is curious and almost childlike. It’s looking for something. This is the only thing it knows.

  
  
“ _Mummy?_ ” the creature asks.

Century Wharf is a part of the city guaranteed to have a substantial security setup. For better or for worse, almost every angle is available on a CCTV camera; Tosh makes her way into the network, knowing they can figure out what they’ll be dealing with before they get within the danger zone. 

Running a trace for movement within the time frame, it takes her just over a minute to find the right camera. 

“Tosh!” 

“Hold on…” she replies, rewinding video footage on her laptop screen until she finds a telltale white glare dissipating in the background.

“We don’t have-”

“Look.” She pauses the footage and turns around, gesturing for the team to come closer. “I’ve got the CCTV from the area. High-end homes are useful like that. Besides, a six-year-old could hack this system-”

“What’ve you got?” Jack asks, jogging back up the stairs, 

She zooms in on a shadowed figure, looking around itself with vacant curiosity. It’s humanoid, at least, but there’s something about the head that looks wrong. The footage is too blurry to make out the details, though, and it’s standing in shade cast by a building. 

“Recognize anything?” she asks Jack, who’s gone quiet, frozen at her side with his eyes fixed on the screen. 

“It looks… er- no. Never seen it.” He blinks, clears his throat, and takes a step back. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there. Good job, though.” Heading once more for the stairs, he calls after the rest of the team. “Anyone got that inflatable cell with them?”

“Ah, yeah,” Gwen says. “Saw it in the armoury last week. I’ll grab it.”

If Tosh had more time, she could fix up the footage and confirm whether or not she was seeing what she thought she was. She squints at the creature, all but a silhouette in the grainy half-light. It’s hard to put her finger on what exactly the shape reminds her of, but she can hear the alarms of the cog door opening and knows they’ll have to go in blind. 

“C’mon.” Tosh starts when Owen’s hand lands on her shoulder, and she breaks her gaze away from the figure on the screen. 

With Jack in the driver’s seat the journey is over in no time at all, and the team piles out onto the glossy pavement. 

The apartment complex backs onto the river, with a low tide that leaves the banks muddy and exposed. Nothing stirs at this hour of the morning, but they pick up the pace regardless, uncomfortable to find a rift opening in such a residential area. 

“We’ve got a strong location on the monitor,” Tosh says. “It looks like it hasn’t moved far. North-East, a few yards…”

Her voice cuts off when she looks up.

“... that way.”

Standing in front of them, clear as day, is the figure from the screen. There’s no doubt about it; despite appearing human, the way that this creature stands and stares makes it wholly unnatural.

That, and the gas mask.

Jack stumbles. Takes a step back, grasping the first shoulder he finds and pulling it towards him. 

“Hey,” Gwen says, being dragged backwards by Jack’s grip. “What’s-”

“Get back.” Gwen could swear she heard his voice shake. “I said, _get_ _away-_ ” he shouts when the others don’t move. They start to retreat at the sight of Jack’s Webley, held tight in one hand, the other still glued to Gwen’s jacket.

“You know it?” Owen asks. He’s reaching for his own pistol.

Jack nods. “Yeah. You can’t - Tosh, get back - you mustn’t let it touch you. At least, if this is what I think it is. Give me that cell, someone.”

“Which is…?” Gwen reaches for the cell in her pocket, gently detaching Jack’s hand from her shoulder. 

“A mistake.”

He takes the cell and starts forward, motioning for the others to stay behind him. The creature only stares out of glass eyes. It holds itself in a way that’s both hesitant and unafraid, almost childlike; the clothes, ragged and old-fashioned, are human, but not from this time. Beneath the mask, it looks like an adult man. 

Jack advances slowly so as not to spook it. 

When the creature speaks, it’s muffled by the mask, but the words are easy to make out. 

“ _Are you_ -”

“Shut up,” Jack growls. 

He activates the cell with a button on the side and throws it to the creature’s feet. The rings of light burst upwards, engulfing it in the cylindrical prison, but the creature barely seems to notice. With its head to the side, it gazes around itself as the blue light reflects off the mask’s eyes. 

“It looks human,” Gwen mutters to herself when they’re sure the creature is contained.

“It is.” Owen approached the cell and circled it, eyes narrowed. “But, the mask…” He steps as close as he can go. “It’s fused to the face, somehow. This is _really_ weird-”

“ _Are_ -”

“Owen!”

When Jack interrupts the creature’s voice again, Owen flinches and takes a step back. 

“Alright,” he says, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “What is it, why can’t we touch it, and when can I study it?”

“Long story, another long story, and no, you can’t.” Jack hasn’t broken his stare away from the creature. 

“Why-”

“You knew, back at the hub.” Gwen cuts Owen off. 

“I guessed.”

“You’ve seen these before, then?”

“A long time ago. Now.” He takes a deep breath and puts the Webley back in its holster, turning to address the rest of the team. “You have to get out of here. Get hold of Ianto, ask him to pick you up, phone a taxi, but you can’t come back with me. I’m doing this alone.”

The three of them exchange looks. “Jack-” Gwen starts to say, but cuts herself off when he meets her eye with a glare.

“Is that understood?” He growls, then seems to backtrack on his anger, taking a softer tone. “Please. Meet me back at the hub. It’s not safe for you to travel with it. Okay?”

“You’ll explain what this is?”

“When I’ve dealt with it.”

“You promise?”

He nods. Meets their eyes, one by one, and ends with an unexpected smile. “I promise. Go.”

To do this right, he’ll have to take a risk. It won’t be just one, but this particular risk comes with consequences he’s not sure he’ll be able to avoid. It involves making assumptions about his… condition - even after so long the word ‘immortality’ still feels wrong - and over the years he’s learnt not to assume anything. 

The easier route would be to contact the Doctor. Not that he’s certain he can do that. Reaching him through Martha is a possibility, and also one that makes him want to crawl into the deepest hole he can find for a few thousand years, riding out the shame. His _Mistake_ , as he still refers to it in the privacy of his head, is one of many, but the only one to earn capitalisation; every time the Doctor enters his mind, the Mistake is bound to make a cringeworthy appearance. 

Still, Jack thinks. He owes his team an explanation. He’d made a deal with himself over the year he didn’t like to think about to be more transparent with them, at least, as much as possible, and this is a good starting point. 

If it ends up how he’s hoping it will.

Jack glances at the area around him, the creature still paralysed in the inflatable cell. Gwen, Owen and Tosh had headed back to the main road to find transport back to the hub, leaving him alone with only the gas mask person, the SUV, and a decision to make. 

He distracts himself for a moment by watching the tide come in. It’s already risen by half a metre up the bank since they’ve been there, tugging at overhanging branches from the shrubbery on the other side of the river. The water glows with an odd charm, its restful surface concealing the rapids beneath. 

Before he can think it over, Jack reaches for the cell on the ground, turning it off and reaching inside - he feels rough cotton under his fingers when he grips the sleeve of the creature, pulling it close.

He avoids touching its bare skin, but the damage is done. If he’s wrong about this, there’s no going back now. 

“Don’t say a word,” he mutters to it. Although he doubts the creature can understand him, let alone follow his instruction, he doesn’t think he can bear hearing those words again. Just being so close to the dead eyes of the mask is making his heart race. 

Jack swallows. 

With one hand on its arm and the other reaching into his coat for the keys, he steers the creature towards the SUV.

Ianto looks up when the cog door rolls open. 

He drops the file he’s reading beside him when he sees the team jog in, almost tripping over each other in their haste.

“Where’s the SUV?” Ianto asks, standing up from the sofa. “I didn’t see it on the cameras.”

“Jack’s got it,” Gwen says, out of breath. “We took a taxi. He’s coming back with the… thing.”

“What was it?”

Owen walks past him to the autopsy room. “God knows.” He gives Ianto a touch on the arm as he passes, staring straight ahead; as he rushes down the stairs to his lab, snatching a pen from his haphazard collection, Ianto knows he’s got some theories to put to the test.

And if today’s creature is interesting enough to engage Owen, he knows they’ve got a tricky one on their hands.

It’s only a few minutes later when the cog door opens again. This time, Jack steps through, dragging a figure alongside him that’s enough to make Ianto’s blood run cold.

It’s human. Near enough. Dressed in old-fashioned but undoubtedly human clothes. Almost as tall as Jack, perhaps a little shorter; it’s hard to tell with the mask.

Those chilling wide eyes look right at him, and Ianto is frozen.

“ _Are-_ ”

“Stop!”

The shout makes Ianto jump. Jack accompanies it by shaking the figure’s arm from where he holds it, glaring at the lifeless mask with a look Ianto hasn’t seen often, and never wants to see again. 

Jack’s face is pale. 

He looks scared out of his mind. 

“Tosh,” Jack calls, breaking through Ianto’s concern. “Can you fetch the program?”

“The…” she pauses, raising her eyebrows, as if she and Jack alone knew what he meant. “Really? Now?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not finished.”

“It’s good enough.” He stays by the entrance with both hands on the figure. Ianto feels the eyes on him again, but it doesn’t make any effort to move; it seems strangely content to have been manhandled across Cardiff. 

Tosh bites her lip. “Okay. But you’ve got to be careful.”

“I know.” Turning away, he pulls the inflatable cell out of his pocket, activating the rings and trapping the creature where it is. He walks hesitantly towards Tosh. “Ianto?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t touch that… thing. And don’t even think about asking why. I’ll tell you when it’s over.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sir.” Ianto locks his gaze with Jack’s for a moment longer, putting on what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “What can I do?”

“Keep an eye on that. Make sure the power doesn’t drain.” He gestures to the figure, still standing in the rings, looking completely unfazed. Although that could just be the gas mask. “And watch the CCTV from Century Wharf, look out for anything similar. There could be more out there. Gwen? Rewind the footage from this morning and do the same.” 

“On it.” 

Gwen follows Ianto to Tosh’s desk, where the CCTV footage is playing on one of the monitors. She sends it over to a second monitor without a word and rewinds her own to before they left. 

“Owen?” Jack calls. There’s the sound of shoes sprinting up the stairs, then Owen pokes his head around the corner of the autopsy room. He’s got the pen in one hand and his notebook in the other. Nobody besides Owen has seen inside the book; it’s bright red and scruffy, with bent corners and a crumbling spine, stuffed so full with notes and extra pages that it’s regularly clamped shut with a huge bulldog clip. If only Ianto could get his hands on it, he thinks, that notebook would be invaluable - the observations and theories in its yellowing pages could hold the next medical marvel. However, Owen seems to thrive in the disorder of it, and its contents are incomprehensible. 

“Hello?” Owen says, in a surprisingly cheerful tone. 

Jack must have noticed the notebook and Owen’s enthusiasm, because he dismisses him with a wave of his hand. “Doesn’t matter.”

Owen disappears without comment. Ianto knows they’ll both be down in the archives as soon as he’s allowed, with Ianto digging for files under Owen’s request, building up his new theory. Whatever Owen saw in the figure with the gas mask, it’s enough to occupy him for the next week or so.

Ianto makes a mental note to make sure he sleeps.

“Got it.” Tosh jogs over to Jack with what looks like an external hard drive in her hand, as well as a cable. Jack takes a step back when she gets close. 

“Careful. Put it down here and get back.”

Tohs places the equipment on the ground and retreats, hands clenched in anticipation. Ianto has one eye on the screen and the other on Jack as he reaches down to connect the hard drive to his wrist strap.

“How long?” He asks Tosh.

She shrugs. “Won’t know until we try. But not long.”

Jack waits as his wrist strap lights up. Something is downloading, and although Ianto knows he and Gwen are eager to ask what it is, they keep their mouths shut. Jack sends agitated glances back to the figure whilst he waits and Ianto turns back to the screen. 

“ _Mummy?_ ”

The voice makes Ianto start, and Jack visibly finches. 

“Quiet,” he says, and the figure only tilts its head in the way a child might.

“What the hell was that?” Gwen asks. 

“Ignore it. Don’t answer.”

“It sounded scared.”

“It’s not itself. Those aren’t its real thoughts.”

“Whose are they?” Gwen looks back at the monitor when she talks, and Ianto notices her subtle method of questioning. She’d caught on to Jack’s slip in his promise of not explaining until later and is calmly taking advantage of it, pushing him into giving up a little more information. Ianto stays quiet. He’d rather not be in the dark about it either.

“It’s- wait.” Jack is interrupted by a beep on his wrist strap. “Tosh?”

“It should be ready.”

He unplugs the cable and straightens up. “Gwen,” he says. “Could you find me the coordinates of Big Ben?”

“Seriously?”

“If you don’t mind.” His tone has changed from a moment ago. It’s louder, stronger, more Jack-like, and Ianto feels reassured knowing he’s got a plan. 

“Uh- hold on a moment.” She spins around to the keyboard to her right. After a few moments, she looks up. “Okay. Fifty-one point five-oh-oh-seven North… got it?”

Jack taps the coordinates into his wrist strap. “Yeah.”

“And nought point one-two-four-six West. Why Big Ben?”

“It’s the closest landmark to where I need to be. Now. Twentieth of January, nineteen forty-one, twenty past nine...” 

“Hold on. Hold on-” Gwen stands up, raising her eyebrows at Jack. “You’re not doing what I think you’re doing?”

“You’re what?” asks Owen, appearing from the autopsy room.

“I thought-”

Jack holds up a hand to stop them. “This… _thing-_ it came from nineteen forty-one. I’ve got to take it back.”

“Isn’t it broken?” Ianto asks.

“The Doctor fixed it, then broke it again, but it’s not in such a bad state this time around. And I guess he underestimated me. Because the thing is -” Jack grins, as he finishes entering the coordinates - “I know what I’m doing. And so does Tosh.”

“She- what, you know how to time travel?” Gwen asks Tosh, who bites her lip, hiding joyful pride hidden behind a modest smile.

“Well. No-”

“You do now,” Jack interrupts. “She patched up the programming.”

Tosh shrugs. “It’s not so hard once you get your head around the basics.”

“And you’ve been doing this when…?”

“Now and then. It was a bit of a summer project.”

“Only you could go forward thirty centuries in a few months,” Owen says with a shake of his head, and Tosh seems to glow.

Jack addresses the whole room but meets Ianto’s eye. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on going anywhere. Not permanently.”

He walks back to the creature, who had been so still that Ianto had almost forgotten about it. Jack turns off the cell and puts it back in his coat, once again grasping the figure by the arm. He drags it towards where Ianto is standing, in a clear area of the hub. They offer each other a smile. 

“I don’t know how this is going to turn out,” Tosh says. “I’m not entirely convinced the code will work as it should.”

“I’ll prepare for a bumpy ride.”

“It might be worse than bumpy.” She’s got her arms crossed with one finger tapping on her elbow like she does when she’s nervous. “It hasn’t been used in so long.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Jack says, and strengthens his grip on the sleeve of the figure. “I don’t know when I’ll be home, but I promise I’m coming back. No matter what.” He positions his finger on a button on the wrist strap and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Here-”

There’s a flash of blue light and Jack doubles over. The figure seems paralysed again, shaking and jerking when the light crawls over its body; Jack shakes too, crying out as the device malfunctions.

“Jack!”

Ianto moves before he can think. 

He sees Jack’s eyes rolling as he gasps for breath, the light spilling from his wrist and engulfing the pair-

It’s instinct, really.

Ianto steps forward and reaches into the light, feeling it burn at his skin. It’s like his chest is being pulled in two different directions, one towards the device, and the other away from it - he feels the leather under his hand and scrambles to find the button to turn it off. 

The light is growing and the image of the hub becomes weaker by the second-

“Ianto, _no-_ ”

He sees nothing but white.

Fighting through the haze, Jack finds gravity again - he feels his feet on the ground and lets go of the cloth in his hand, pressing the top of the portable cell and throwing it in front of him. He’s squinting past the post-time travel headache but he sees the blue rings jump up and hold the creature in place. 

He breathes. Reaches out a hand to steady himself. Finds a soft arm that grasps back at him when he touches it.

As soon as he gets his bearings, Jack spins around, grasping Ianto’s shoulders. 

“You should _not_ be here,” he growls, pushing Ianto back against a wall. Ianto only blinks blearily at him, taking breaths to adjust himself to reality again. Jack remembers the first time he travelled this way, the shaky fluctuation of what was real, a nauseating weightless sensation he still feels. He backs off, dropping his arms and turning to face the road in front of him. 

It’s nighttime. The first thing he sees is the ghostly shape of a barrage balloon above them, followed by the silhouette of the clock tower in the distance. There are no other lights besides the stars, all windows having been boarded up; that doesn’t make it quiet, though - Jack can hear music drifting out of a building to his left, a slow and nostalgic wartime song being joined by thick London accents. The noise of the city jogs his memory and suddenly he’s here, where it all started. 

He gives himself a moment to let it all flood back.

It feels different after so long. This year, nineteen forty-one - it holds the weight of something he stole. 

But now’s not the time. 

“The hospital,” Jack says, knowing Ianto will be listening. “We need to get him there before the Doctor arrives, and he’ll blend in with the rest of them. Probably where he came from in the first place, anyway.”

“One day, you’re going to have to tell me the whole story.” He feels Ianto at his side, still out of breath from the jump.

Jack turns, wondering whether or not to reprimand him. The blame didn’t entirely land on Ianto, and his memory of the vortex manipulator acting up was already a little hazy. He’d only been trying to help. 

“I’m sorry,” Ianto says. “I know you wanted to do this alone."

“I’m just worried about you.” Jack shakes his head. “I’d rather you were safe at home, but… I’m glad you’re here.”

When Ianto smiles, and he can’t help but smile back. “Higher stakes than a Weevil hunt. Still. Same concept.” Ianto starts to walk forward in the direction of the road, looking over his shoulder for Jack to follow. “I’m with you all the way.”

The sight of the creature in the cell is a harsh reminder of the circumstances. Picking it up and catching the arm of the creature before it can move, he feels the momentary rush fade away. Nothing to ruin a touching moment like the sight of a gas mask fused with skin.

They reach the hospital after fifteen minutes. With Ianto keeping a safe distance from the creature and Jack dragging it along by its arm, they’d spent the journey ignoring both its haunting questions and the wail of the air raid sirens. 

Big Ben’s clock face lit up halfway through the journey. Jack had tried not to think about the champagne, the steady notes of Glenn Miller. Rose’s soft hand in his.

He’d caught Ianto glancing cautiously at the sky, betraying his concern. He sped up slightly when they heard the low rumble of a bomb from the other side of the city. 

“We’ll be fine,” He’d said, trying to make Ianto’s worry seem irrational, when he too was starting to jump every time the sirens started back up. 

“You can’t know that.”

“It’s hardly my fault you’re here,” Jack said, the anger jumping out of nowhere. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m not only concerned about myself.” 

Jack paused before replying. Now wasn’t the time for a fight. “Maybe you should be.”

“How so?”

“This thing, it passes on its…” he fought for the right word. “Mutation. Of sorts. You touch it too late in the transformation and you get gas mask-ed too.”

“But how did-? You know what, okay. You can tell me later.” Ianto threw a concerned glance at Jack. “You’re touching it.”

“I’m making a guess.”

“That it won’t affect you?”

“Yeah.” He re-arranged his grip on the creature’s sleeve. “But you can’t touch it. Or me. Just as a precaution.”

“Understood.” 

Jack hadn’t replied. He’d shifted the sleeve of his coat down to cover a small cut on his hand. No need to worry Ianto just yet.

The hospital comes into sight in the distance, its iron gates looming above the road. A huge padlock chains the gates together, keeping people out in the final stages of the plague. Jack stops a few metres away and looks to Ianto.

“You got your gun on you?”

“One step ahead of you, Sir.” Ianto stands back and presses the safety off on his pistol, aiming it at the padlock with both hands in a steady grip. 

“I guess now isn’t the time to remind you to drop the ‘Sir’?”

“Buy me a drink later.”

Five shots ring out into the night, and Jack covers one ear with his free hand when they reverberate off the lock. With the gun smoking slightly, Ianto steps forward and gives it a kick, letting the padlock come loose and drop to the ground. 

“After you.”

“No,” Jack says. “You stay here. Get out of sight. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Ianto sighs. “Can you tell me why?”

“It’s overrun with the infected people. Wait outside, and try not to let anyone see you.”

He nods and Jack gives him a look that he hopes is apologetic. “Shut the gates behind me.”

“ _Are you my mummy?_ ”

“I will _kill_ you.”

“ _Mum-_ ”

“I’m not joking.”

Being back in the shadowed corridors of the hospital is the stuff of Jack’s nightmares. Quite literally. The building is silent save for the footsteps of the creature and himself, the infected residents having not woken up yet. He’d got the time right, then. Good.

Intending on leaving the creature deep in the hospital where it can’t get back out, Jack drags it deeper into the building, surprised at how compliant it is; he hadn’t expected the mind of a child to put up much of a fight, but he’s thankful it seems content to be led all the way back to London. 

There’s a clock on the wall to his right. nine-thirty-seven, it reads, and he picks up the pace. It hadn’t taken him long to get here when he’d come from his ship with Rose. Running into any of them would be unthinkable.

Jack’s chest starts to burn when he reaches the second floor. 

He glances into the wards, ignoring the glint of gas masks in the dark. He can be scared when he gets home. Now, he needs to find an empty room, and leave this creature there until the Doctor can arrive. He’s conscious of how easy it would be to make a catastrophic mistake of the history-changing kind.

“ _Mummy?_ ”

“Shut-” he tries to say, and is interrupted by a cough. “Shut up.” 

The hanging lights buzz above him as he pushes open a door. It’s an empty room with nothing but a small bead - reminding him unpleasantly of other military hospitals, Jack pushes the gas mask man forward into the room and slams the door behind him. Taking a moment to lean on the door and get his breath back, Jack notices the throbbing in his head and shuts his eyes against the glare of the lights. 

_You have five seconds to stop._

Giving the creature one last look through the glass in the door and ignoring its pitiful questions, Jack turns on his heel and runs.

Ianto opens the gates to let him out when he sprints out of the door. 

“Alright?”

Jack nods, his heart racing. “Go.”

His head is almost as bad as his chest now; the left side is stinging and his vision is greying, leaving a sick feeling in his stomach. He ignores it with a mental shake and gestures for Ianto to move forward. “We’ll get further away before we jump. I don’t want to be anywhere near her if something goes wrong.”

When Ianto turns away and makes for the alley to their left, Jack brings a hand up to the side of his head. Glancing up to be sure he wasn’t noticed, he looks down at his fingers - even in the dark of the Blitz, he can see them shine with blood. 

“We could get to the back of the hospital,” Ianto is saying, his voice strangely distant. “I recognise this area. If it hasn’t changed too much since- well, if it _won’t_ change too much until my time, it’s less populated. Should be safer.” In the absence of a reply, he stops and turns around. “… Jack?”

Jack’s next breath catches in his throat. He leans against a wall before his legs give out.

“Give me a minute.”

“What’s wrong?”

Maybe he’d hit his head during the jump. He’s finding it harder to breathe by the second and he sways where he stands.

Ianto moves to support him but Jack throws himself back, keeping distance between them. “No!” he says. “You can’t touch me.”

“I thought it wouldn’t work on you?” Ianto says, catching on fast, the panic rising in his voice.

“I thought so too. But the nanogenes, they’re trying to reset me. Back to factory settings. Or so they think. Thing is, that’s what my… condition. That’s what it does. As well- _ah-_ ” Jack grimaces, one hand on his chest, which feels as if it’s caving in. “They’ll fight each other. It just depends who’s fastest.” He gives a humourless laugh. “Chula tech versus the energy of the Time Vortex. Ha! Place your bets.”

“What if it wins?” Ianto asks, holding his hands out. It looks as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself, torn between staying back and reaching out to help. 

Jack groans, pressing his other hand to his head. “I don’t know.” He wants to ask Ianto for help, wants to be home, but he’s stuck in a dingy alleyway in wartime London, his skull about to burst. “I don’t know,” he repeats, trying not to choke on the words.

Not all that far away, on the road approaching the hospital, a tall figure steps in front of the gates. He raises his eyebrows at the cracked padlock. Untangling the knotted chain and pushing the gates open, he enters the hospital’s grounds. 

_The doctor,_ Nancy had said. _Talk to the doctor first._ Who is this doctor? What did he have to do with the boy in the mask? And perhaps more urgently, where had Rose got to?

He looks up at the ornate design of the building, shrouded in the shadow of a tree. The padlock is forgotten.

A year or so ago, watching Jack from a distance wasn’t something Ianto would have found hard. 

Now, he stands as close as he dares.

“We can’t go home, can we?” he asks, whilst Jack slumps against the wall.

“No. Not like this.”

“What do we do?” 

His voice sounds small. 

Jack, coughing and shaking, digs into his coat and pulls out his Webley, taking a step forward and handing it to Ianto, who moves away from it with a small shake of his head. 

“You know I-”

“No. Yan. Please-”

“We can take you back. To the Doctor. He’ll fix you, like the others, right?” Ianto tries to hide the way his voice cracks.

“I’m _sorry._ ” Jack looks on the verge of crying himself, arms wrapped around his chest, his breathing getting faster by the second. “He can’t see me. I’m so sorry, you have to-”

“We wait it out.”

“Won’t work like that.”

“I can’t.” He’s got one hand on his own pistol, moving almost independently of his mind. “I lo-”

His words are cut off when Jack coughs, sinking to the ground. He retches, clutching at his throat, gasping out the last words-

“You- have to-” he chokes out. “You- _are_ \- have to- kill me- _are you…_ ”

A shot rings out into the night.

Ianto waits.

He doesn’t hold Jack’s body.

When Jack wakes, choking on the remnants of leather and metal, Ianto does his best not to sob.

“Go to your room!”

Inside the hospital, a man in a leather jacket gazes around himself in surprise. The woman stands close to his side, watching the figures turn their backs on the group, and he feels the other man standing behind him.

“I’m really glad that worked,” the Doctor says. “Those would have been terrible last words.”

There’s a flash of light and they’re pelted with questions from three angles. Ianto doesn’t let go of Jack’s wrist as they get their bearings, and a frantic voice cuts through the haze.

“Is it safe?”

That’s Tosh.

Jack nods and Tosh barrels all of her small body into him, followed by Gwen, who wraps an arm over Ianto too, as Owen grips them both like he’s never letting go.

It hurts like hell, the room is far too hot and he’s dizzy enough to pass out where he stands, but Jack holds onto the others with all his strength and laughs.

“You won.”

“I did.”

He looks up from his desk, the case report lying empty in front of him. Having already answered the team’s questioning well into the night, Jack is reluctant to recap it again. Perhaps he’ll do it in the morning. Absently running his fingers over his vortex manipulator, he wonders what he would have done had it not worked on the journey back, or if he’d got the wrong coordinates. He makes a mental note to review it with Tosh the next day. 

“Jack,” Ianto says, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. “What if it touched someone? In Cardiff, I mean? Before you brought it here?”

“It didn’t.”

“Maybe we haven’t noticed yet.”

He doesn’t tell Ianto that the same thought had crossed his mind.

“I guess we’ll find out.”


End file.
